When you are doing genealogy research, it can sometimes be tempting to stick to the nuts and bolts of names and dates so that you can keep your research moving and complete your family tree. While completing something that you set out to accomplish is certainly a worthwhile and important goal, you may want to do other family history projects concurrently with your family tree research, or after you have finished your tree. The projects that you create will preserve your family’s history for future generations, so any type of project that you do is sure to be appreciated.
Humor reigns supreme in my family. I think that a fun idea for a family history project for my family would be to make a family “Funny Book”. To make the book, I would get a scrapbook and ask family members to dig out their funniest photos. I would also ask them to type up funny stories, which we would also put into the “Funny Book”. A third source of content for the family “Funny Book” would be my family members’ answers to random questions that they are assigned. I would probably put interesting questions on slips of paper and have my relatives pick a few questions each out of a hat. Each person would then write the questions and his or her answers to them in the book.
What kinds of questions would I put into the hat? There are so many that I can think of, but here are a few: What is the most disgusting thing that you have ever eaten? What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you at school? Did you ever play a prank on your mother? Do you have any memorable “April Fool’s” moments? Did you ever skip school? If so, what did you do that day? What was your most memorable family trip and why? What was the funniest thing that your mother or father ever said? The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. This project seems like something that could, with a little advance planning, be a really interesting and fun part of a family reunion. Has anyone done something like this for their family? How did it turn out?